Taobao only refunds and has new actions

E-commerce newspaper Pro

2024-06-02 23:25Posted on the official account of Guangdong E-commerce News

Taobao's "refund-only" adjustment allows users to apply multiple times

For the sake of user experience, Taobao is out of the way.

On May 30, Taobao Platform Rules issued a public notice on changing the "Taobao Timeout Instructions", which mainly optimizes the after-sales experience when buyers initiate refund-only/return refund applications.

Source: Taobao platform rules

The core change after this adjustment is that when the buyer applies for a refund only/return refund after the transaction is successful, if the buyer voluntarily withdraws the after-sales application, the buyer does not modify the after-sales application after the seller refuses, and the buyer does not apply for Taobao intervention, the buyer can initiate the after-sales application again during the after-sales guarantee period.

Taking "refund only" as an example, after the previous buyer's application is rejected, if the after-sales application is not modified again or Taobao intervention is not applied for within the specified time, the after-sales application will be revoked by default, and the application cannot be re-applied after the revocation.

However, after the rule change, the restriction of "no re-application after cancellation" is lifted, and the buyer can still apply again as long as it is still within the after-sales guarantee period (generally within 15 days after the successful transaction).

Source: Taobao platform rules

The new rules were announced on May 30 and will come into effect on June 6.

Taobao said that consumers are now demanding more and more after-sales service, and the adjustment is to enable consumers to enjoy a more expected transaction experience on the platform.

Judging from the actual situation, Taobao's adjustment is indeed necessary.

For example, some consumers apply for a refund-only/return refund for some reasons after receiving the goods, but they are rejected because they are not within the scope of after-sales. A few days later, the consumer found another problem with the goods, and it is still within the after-sales warranty period, so there will be a need to apply for after-sales again.

If, in accordance with the original provisions, the buyer fails to modify the after-sales application in time after being rejected for the first time, it will be revoked by default and cannot apply again, which is obviously unreasonable.

Taobao has also noticed this for a long time, so in the actual operation process, users are actually allowed to initiate multiple applications. However, the lack of explicit regulations is always easy to cause misunderstandings or other loopholes, so the original regulations were optimized in the 618 consumption season.

It is worth mentioning that consumers are not allowed to apply again if they have been finally determined not to meet the reasons for applying for a refund-only. In other words, there should not be a situation where consumers maliciously deceive only refunds in the form of multiple applications - this point is still considered by the platform.

Taobao returns to users, and users return to Taobao

At the end of last year, Taobao issued a public announcement on changing the dispute settlement rules of the Taobao platform. It mentions that if a seller obtains too many bad reviews or violation records on the Taobao platform, once they receive a complaint, they may face a direct return for a refund or a refund only.

This new regulation has stirred up a thousand waves with one stone, and has been widely interpreted as a signal that Taobao fully supports "refund-only", which has caused some concern among the merchant community.

However, Taobao's rules also mention that it will determine the high probability of the corresponding circumstances for the goods sold recently based on its own big data capabilities, and directly provide quick return and refund or refund support for buyers who initiate after-sales sales that meet the relevant circumstances such as improper description, confusion and misleading, counterfeit and shoddy.

Source: Taobao platform rules

For some controversial contents, it is still necessary for multiple parties to continue to negotiate, mainly based on the business behavior of the merchant.

In the following six months, we have seen Taobao continue to adjust its refund-only policy to optimize the user experience. For example, a few months ago, Taobao shortened the processing time limit for refund-only after delivery: the timeout period was shortened from 48 hours to 36 hours, and the processing timeout time after the merchant "intercepted the express" was shortened from 5 days to 3 days. If the timeout is not processed, the system will default to a refund only.

In the context of Taotian Group's "user first" strategy, low price, quality, and service are all important components to improve consumers' shopping experience, and the existence of "refund only" is also to ensure consumers' experience in specific scenarios.

And the results are significant. Alibaba's latest financial report shows that Taotian Group's revenue in the first quarter of this year increased by 4% year-on-year to 93.216 billion yuan, and there are three bright spots:

First, online GMV and order volume achieved double-digit year-on-year growth, driven by strong growth in the number of purchasers and purchase frequency. second, the number of 88VIP members increased by double digits year-on-year, exceeding 35 million; Third, customer management revenue increased by 5% year-over-year, mainly driven by strong revenue growth from search and recommendation.

Considering the scale of Taotian Group, it is extremely impressive to be able to achieve a growth rate of 4%. In this way, Taotian will naturally choose to improve the user experience more firmly to drive the growth of the overall consumption frequency and GMV of the platform.

In 618 this year, we saw that Taobao and Tmall canceled the pre-sale for the first time and sold it directly in stock. In addition, most of the products participate in the full reduction and direct drop, and users do not need to rack their brains to think about how to make up the order, which also makes this year's 618 called "the easiest session in history".

There is no doubt that simplifying the big promotion activities is also one of Taotian's measures to optimize the user experience, and the resulting effect is also significant.

According to statistics, in the first phase of 618 this year, the number of visits to the Taobao event venue increased by 14 times compared with last year; On May 20, the number of visits to 88VIP members increased by 40% year-on-year to 618, and the average purchase amount per capita increased by more than 30% year-on-year.

It can be seen that the extremely simple promotion gameplay has greatly improved the user experience, fully stimulated the user's enthusiasm for consumption, and finally directly created more opportunities for the platform merchants to explode.

According to the data officially disclosed by Taobao, the number of new merchants participating in the promotion for the first time in 618 this year increased by 60% year-on-year, reaching a new high; Three days after the sale, the turnover of 200 new merchants exceeded one million, the overall turnover of new merchants increased by 223% year-on-year, and the turnover of 370,000 small merchants on the first day of sale increased by more than 100% year-on-year.

Tmall 618 got off to a good start Source: Taotian Express

The fiery consumption atmosphere has also driven the enthusiasm of merchants. According to the latest data released by Taotian, more than 300,000 Taobao Tmall merchants have registered for the first wave of the Tmall 618 promotion. Among them, the number of Taobao merchant registrations hit a record high, and the number of merchant registrations increased by 24% year-on-year.

On the whole, Taobao's decision to return to users is undoubtedly the right one. As the e-commerce industry enters the era of stock competition, users are the most valuable wealth and the cornerstone of the platform's continued growth. Ensuring the user's experience is actually creating more business opportunities for platform merchants.

In the era of stock competition, buyers determine the market

In the early days of the e-commerce industry, due to the huge market space, sellers could attract consumers by offering goods and services, and the market was dominated by sellers. However, with the development of the market and the intensification of competition, consumers' choice and bargaining power have increased, and the market has gradually transformed into a buyer's market.

Especially in the e-commerce industry, consumers can easily compare the goods and services of different merchants through the Internet, so the buyer's preferences and needs have a greater influence on the market.

On the other hand, with the gradual maturity of the e-commerce market and the limited number of new users, the competition between platforms mainly occurs between the competition for existing users. This means that platforms and merchants need to compete for market share by improving user stickiness and increasing user consumption frequency.

In order to achieve this, the user experience is naturally indispensable. Today's e-commerce platforms and merchants need to pay more attention to the needs and preferences of consumers, and satisfy consumers by providing personalized and high-quality goods and services to have a chance to stand out from the competition.

As a result, we see that platforms such as Taobao and JD.com, in addition to learning from the leading services of other platforms, are also exploring more personalized services that can meet the specific needs of consumers.

For example, Taobao recently launched a number of service specifications in vertical fields such as "don't like to eat and return", "don't like to smell and return", "taste can be refunded", "seven days of non-learning can be refunded", so that merchants can choose whether to join or not.

As a platform, of course, it cannot abuse its dominant market position to require merchants to provide services beyond the norm. However, for merchants who have the ability to provide consumers with higher-quality services, the platform will naturally actively give more traffic exposure and resource support.

In today's world where user experience has become particularly important, both platforms and merchants need to continuously optimize the shopping process, improve customer service, strengthen brand building, etc. - after all, in the current competitive environment, user satisfaction is more important than anything else.

Author | Li Songyue

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